Employment question - quit or terminated?

[RhaegarTar]

Hello everyone quick question, I started a new job about a month ago and on Wednesday my boss called me in and said that there was some concern that I may have lied on my employment application because I said that I had never been terminated or asked to resign, and a previous employer is suggesting that I was terminated.

I told my current boss that I went into the meeting in question (several years ago) knowing that I would be terminated and immediately resigned / quit the job. Therefore it was my understanding that I had not been terminated or asked to resign, but had in fact quit.

My current boss has told me that this will not be used against me and has written up the incident to be placed in my permanent file. However the short letter that he wrote, while fair in saying that this, 'not be used against me' did utilize the term 'lied on my employment application

I have two questions. First of all if my previous employer had fully intended to terminate me and I was able to preemptively quit, was I terminated or did I quit? I never collected unemployment I never considered that he terminated me but his impression is because he intended to terminate me, that I was terminated. That makes a big difference to me in regards to whether or not I lied on my application. My second question is how do I approach my new boss and request that the record in regards to this letter be altered to reflect the fact that I was, if in fact you agree that that's the case, never terminated or asked to resign. I was not asked to resign as i resigned immediately upon the beginning of that meeting. 

I know that this all seems a bit excessive for a regular job, but it is a very good job at a school, thus I am an extremely at-will employee, as any teacher in the United States is for the first couple of years, and it is unlikely that I will be able to get another teaching job if this one does not work out this year. The termination in question has nothing to do with teaching as it was in a completely separate career. I need the review process next spring to go very smoothly and I do not want a letter in my file which says I 'lied' unless that is absolutely true.

[Xray the Enforcer]

I would not sign that letter if it says "lied on your employment application" because, as it stands, you didn't lie. Instead, the letter should reflect that the claims of your employment termination are disputed by the two parties involved. As such, sit down with your boss and say that while you agree with most of the letter, you will not agree to the phrasing.

As for how? Call a meeting. Although you should probably start looking for another job or allies where you are, because this one already seems to have it out for you. I mean, holy shit they're already putting notes in your file. I had a friend who forgot to mention that he hadn't quite graduated college yet (his CV had his almost-mater on there), and when HR discovered this nobody gave a damn because he was good at his job and his boss wanted to keep him around.

[RhaegarTar]

Thank you.  I'll talk to the Principal today, and i'm sure we can work it out.  As it is a public school, pretty much everything has to go in the records.  I just don't want his promise of "this will not be used against you during consideration of your further employment next spring," to be either overridden by the superintendant (well, you did agree that you lied on your application....), or ignored all together.  If I quit, I did not lie on the application, as I was neither terminated, nor asked to tender my resignation (even if they were forthcoming).   

He has said that he is very happy with my work so far, and merely was asked to investigate this as a matter of course. 

[zelticgar]

It sounds like what happened in your previous job could be classified as a Mutual Separation but the timing you describe screws that up. When you are on a performance plan or any action that is building towards making a case for termination you can quit proactively but timing is an issue. You can't wait until the day you know they are going to fire you and trump that by claiming to resign (unless you happen to be some executive mucky muck). 

What likely happened with that past company is they already marked you as terminated and indicated not eligible for rehire. When your current employers followed up the admin from HR just gave them the classification. It sounds like it all blew over but keep your status in mind for the future and make sure your answer matches up with what really happened. May not be a bad idea to speak to the old company to confirm exactly what they have listed as your status. Typically it is - Terminated, Mutual Separation, Voluntary Resign... 

 

[Iskaral Pust]

If your prior company made a decision to terminate you and in the meeting to inform you of the decision you tried to pre-empt them by resigning first, then you were in fact fired by them and you knew it.    From their perspective you were terminated before that meeting even started.  A pretty transparent ploy may salve your pride but it does not change how that will be perceived by another employer.  I don't want to seem harsh here but I suggest you align your perception with how every other employer will perceive this.  This ploy is completely acceptable as a salve to pride and reputation if your girlfriend/boyfriend dumps you, but not with employers.

From a technical point of view, you should look to amend the phrasing of the letter to say you answered honestly from your perspective in response to the technical phrasing of the question, but that your prior employer may have a different perspective.  I think if you continue to cling to "but I wasn't technically fired" then you are undermining yourself.  A perceived deficit of ethics, self-awareness, honesty, taking responsibility and learning from a mistake will cost you a job much faster than a lie.

Own it.  Make amends.  Learn from it.  Move on.  Best of luck.

 

[sologdin]

constructive discharge, maybe.  

and prior employer is reckless for actually saying 'terminated' to a prospective employer. FFS, amateur hour.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

2 minutes ago, sologdin said:

constructive discharge, maybe.  

and prior employer is reckless for actually saying 'terminated' to a prospective employer. FFS, amateur hour.

So this.  But I would be really careful and open with new employer.  I think "lied" is too strong for what happened, and I would try to get it reworded, but be careful not to be too defensive for reasons Isk states.  Good luck.

[Xray the Enforcer]

52 minutes ago, sologdin said:

and prior employer is reckless for actually saying 'terminated' to a prospective employer. FFS, amateur hour.

Ding ding ding we have a winner.

[Trigger Warning]

The issue is that as far as they're concerned your conduct in a previous job led you to a position where you knew you were going to be fired and pre-empted that just before, so they've hired you under the assumption that you've never been in that situation. Lied might be too strong of a word as you have technically never been terminated but it still appears quite disingenuous, by not acknowledging it you've basically created an application that implies you've never been in a situation where you were terminated/about to be. 

In the future I'd just acknowledge the situation and be open with potential new employers, it's far better to acknowledge that you were going to be fired than end up in the situation you're in now as it looks like you're just trying to be disingenuous and save face via a technicality,  

[zelticgar]

My prior employer was a large financial services company that ran credit checks, employment, salary and education checks on all employees. I was always surprised about how many people got caught up in the background checks. Many of them played out exactly like the OP describes. Its never a lie as long as they believed it.  

Scenarios like this would come up a lot - "I quit before they could fire me", "I earned my degree but never finished my last class", or my favorite - "I earned all my credits but I owed parking tickets to the school so I never officially got my degree"... People would misstate their dates of employment, lie about their salaries, assure the recruiters there were no issues with credit and then pretend to be shocked when their credit check came back with a low score. The crazy thing about the background checks were the people that lied about degrees. Most of the jobs did not even require degrees but they still lied about having one. It used to drive me crazy when we hired someone who was a great fit for the job and they would get dinged on the employment or degree check. So unnecessary.  

In my state there is a trend to move away from this level of background check which I think is a good thing in some regards but I think the background checks were good for sniffing out the people that made it through interviews but were likely to be train wrecks as employees. 

 

 

[Kalbear]

You didn't lie.

However, you were pretty dishonest, and you were not up front with your information. As you are at a school this can be a problem if it ever gets out and you were shown to have problems in the past and have problems in the future. It's quite possible that they'll simply fire you sooner rather than later because they don't want the risk of that publicity. 

In the future for any high-exposure jobs, you should definitely disclose this earlier. While you didn't lie, it's pretty clear that your previous employer was pretty upset with you and was going to fire you, and that  desire is a red flag regardless of what you can claim on employment.

[zelticgar]

23 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

 

I don't think situations where someone has fulfilled all the requirements for graduation and walks with their class, but has their diploma held for some reason are really all that extraordinary. My alma mater won't release a diploma if the student has an active account with a balance as little as $100, which could very well fall into the "fulfilled all requirements but had diploma withheld because of a parking ticket" category. Hell, I (unknowingly) had my diploma withheld for several months. 

I had a legitimate excused emergency crop up during the middle of finals week of my final semester, and I ended up missing one of my exams. I spoke with the professor and the administration, and they allowed me to walk on the condition that I complete the (pure essay) exam and email it to the professor by the end of the week following commencement. I completed the exam, sent the email, and went on my merry way. It wasn't until several months later that I realized I still hadn't received my diploma, so I called the school and found out my diploma was being held because of an incomplete in that particular class. I called the professor and she stated she'd never received my exam, so I had to take the flash drive on which I'd backed up the exam along with a record of the email I'd sent. I was able to get it cleared up easily enough when I found out about it, but since I was in the middle of planning a wedding, starting a new job and buying a house during the months after graduation, I could completely see myself just blanking on it completely.

And just my two cents, but I'd argue that credit checks for like, 95% of offered positions, are complete bullshit.

Agreed on the credit checks. Most of the roles were financial services jobs so I guess the theory is that you need to have your own house in order so you can give financial advice to customers. They had a blanket policy that every employee needed to take the exact same background check from call center reps all the way up to fund managers. Its been a number of years so I am not sure if states have started changing the laws around that. There was talk about changes before I left so I am out of the loop on financial services. 

Regarding the degree - maybe I'm OCD but if you spend four years or more working your tail off for a degree it seems a little weird that you would "go on your merry way" without checking with the school for a copy of your diploma. I suppose a couple of cases I dealt with were legit but 95% of time we would offer candidates the opportunity to provide a diploma or have them reach out to school to get a correction. We would either never hear from them again, they would say they could not get in touch with anyone that would help them or they would suddenly get another job offer. 

 

[Xray the Enforcer]

I would have never even though about the actual diploma. I mean, there was no problem about my graduation, but I was legit surprised to get a piece of paper in the mail at my parents' house. I would have just assumed everything was on the up and up. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Credit checks by employers are because gambling problems and serial or severe debt problems are considered big risk factors for theft or embezzlement, especially in financial services where opportunities are higher and the reputation of the employer could be destroyed.  The implied combination of need for funds and a history of impulsive/bad decisions is the big issue.  It's not about hypocrisy in providing financial advice.  

[DireWolfSpirit]

20 hours ago, RhaegarTar said:

Hello everyone quick question, I started a new job about a month ago and on Wednesday my boss called me in and said that there was some concern that I may have lied on my employment application because I said that I had never been terminated or asked to resign, and a previous employer is suggesting that I was terminated.

I told my current boss that I went into the meeting in question (several years ago) knowing that I would be terminated and immediately resigned / quit the job. Therefore it was my understanding that I had not been terminated or asked to resign, but had in fact quit.

My current boss has told me that this will not be used against me and has written up the incident to be placed in my permanent file. However the short letter that he wrote, while fair in saying that this, 'not be used against me' did utilize the term 'lied on my employment application

I have two questions. First of all if my previous employer had fully intended to terminate me and I was able to preemptively quit, was I terminated or did I quit? I never collected unemployment I never considered that he terminated me but his impression is because he intended to terminate me, that I was terminated. That makes a big difference to me in regards to whether or not I lied on my application. My second question is how do I approach my new boss and request that the record in regards to this letter be altered to reflect the fact that I was, if in fact you agree that that's the case, never terminated or asked to resign. I was not asked to resign as i resigned immediately upon the beginning of that meeting. 

I know that this all seems a bit excessive for a regular job, but it is a very good job at a school, thus I am an extremely at-will employee, as any teacher in the United States is for the first couple of years, and it is unlikely that I will be able to get another teaching job if this one does not work out this year. The termination in question has nothing to do with teaching as it was in a completely separate career. I need the review process next spring to go very smoothly and I do not want a letter in my file which says I 'lied' unless that is absolutely true.

How many weeks was it till you gained new employment? Were you unqualified to receive unemployment insurance or just not interested in making a claim?

[Erik of Hazelfield]

I think if you said that you were never terminated or asked to resign while in reality you were (save for the technicality that you spoke first), then you so nearly lied that it makes no difference. Not bringing it up at all is one thing but if a presumptive employer asked, you should have told them about this.

The trick here is not to try to hide these things, but to disclose them and present a plausible and reasonable explanation for what happened. I think that's what you should do with this remark, too. Do your best to excel at your work this year. Make yourself a valuable part of the team. When the review comes, be prepared to explain the incident. I have a very hard time seeing it causing you any trouble as long as you haven't given them any other reason to fire you.

[mormont]

Here's an important question nobody's asked so far, and you don't have to answer it, of course, but it seems to me it makes a big difference if your current job is in teaching.

Regardless of whether you technically quit or were fired, what was the underlying reason?

Because if your current employer has the impression that your 'resignation' was not only to avoid having a termination on the record, but to cover up an incident in your previous job that would have been relevant to whether you got this one, then that's much worse than if it's just an argument over the technicalities of your leaving.

I could buy that someone resigned for pride. But if I think they resigned to cover up an allegation of theft or something, that's a different kettle of fish.

[RhaegarTar]

When asked, I clearly explained what the situation was in regards to my quitting that job, which was 5 years ago.  It did not involve theft or anything like that. 

[TerraPrime]

It is not unusual to not have your diploma due to financial holds on your record.

What is unusual, imo, is that someone doesn't rectify it after years, while reporting that they've earned their degree.

[Iskaral Pust]

2 hours ago, TerraPrime said:

It is not unusual to not have your diploma due to financial holds on your record.

What is unusual, imo, is that someone doesn't rectify it after years, while reporting that they've earned their degree.

Yes, resume fraud is far more common than a diploma withheld and overlooked for a period of years for a mere technicality.  I can't remember figures now but when diploma mills were flourishing a few years ago there were lots of reports of how many people claim degrees they never earned, even before the mills offered a convenient temptation.